And trembling all about the breezy dells, As fluttered by the wings of cherubim. Meanwhile the bees are chanting a low hymn ; And, lost to sight, the ecstatic lark above Sings, like a soul beatified, of love, With, now and then, the coo of the wild pigeon;- O pagans, heathens, infidels, and doubters! If such sweet sounds can't woo you to religion, Will the harsh voices of church cads and touters?
A man may cry Church! Church! at every word, With no more piety than other people, A daw's not reckoned a religious bird Because it keeps a-cawing from a steeple ; The Temple is a good, a holy place, But quacking only gives it an ill savor, While saintly mountebanks the porch disgrace, And bring religion's self into disfavor!
I have not sought, 't is true, the Holy Land, As full of texts as Cuddie Headrigg's mother, The Bible in one hand,
And my own commonplace-book in the other; But you have been to Palestine - alas ! Some minds improve by travel; others, rather, Resemble copper wire or brass, Which gets the narrower by going farther!
Worthless are all such pilgrimages - very! If Palmers at the Holy Tomb contrive The human heats and rancor to revive That at the Sepulchre they ought to bury. A sorry sight it is to rest the eye on, To see a Christian creature graze at Sion, Then homeward, of the saintly pasture full, Rush bellowing, and breathing fire and smoke, At crippled Papistry to butt and poke, Exactly as a skittish Scottish bull Hunts an old woman in a scarlet cloke.
Around a cankered stem should twine, Suppose the tender but luxuriant hop What Kentish boor would tear away the prop So roughly as to wound, nay, kill the bine?
The images, 't is true, are strangely dressed, With gauds and toys extremely out of season; The carving nothing of the very best, The whole repugnant to the eye of Reason, Shocking to Taste, and to Fine Arts a treason, Yet ne'er o'erlook in bigotry of sect
One truly Catholic, one common form,
At which unchecked
All Christian hearts may kindle or keep warm.
Say, was it to my spirit's gain or loss, One bright and balmy morning, as I went From Liege's lovely environs to Ghent, If hard by the wayside I found a cross, That made me breathe a prayer upon the spot, While Nature of herself, as if to trace The emblem's use, had trailed around its base The blue significant Forget-Me-Not? Methought, the claims of Charity to urge More forcibly along with Faith and Hope, The pious choice had pitched upon the verge Of a delicious slope,
Giving the eye much variegated scope !— "Look round," it whispered, "on that prospect
rare, Those vales so verdant, and those hills so blue; Enjoy the sunny world, so fresh and fair, But" (how the simple legend pierced me through!) "PRIEZ POUR LES MALHEUREUX.”
With sweet kind natures, as in honeyed cells, Religion lives, and feels herself at home;
But only on a formal visit dwells
Where wasps instead of bees have formed the comb.
Shun pride, O Rae !- whatever sort beside You take in lieu, shun spiritual pride! A pride there is of rank, -a pride of birth, A pride of learning, and a pride of purse, A London pride, in short, there be on earth A host of prides, some better and some worse; But of all prides, since Lucifer's attaint, The proudest swell's a self-elected Saint.
To picture that cold pride so harsh and hard, Fancy a peacock in a poultry-yard. Behold him in conceited circles sail, Strutting and dancing, and now planted stiff, In all his pomp of pageantry, as if He felt "the eyes of Europe on his tail! As for the humble breed retained by man, He scorns the whole domestic clan, He bows, he bridles,
He wheels, he sidles, As last, with stately dodgings in a corner, He pens a simple russet hen, to scorn her Full in the blaze of his resplendent fan!
"Look here," he cries, (to give him words,) "Thou feathered clay, thou scum of birds!". Flirting the rustling plumage in her eyes,
"Look here, thou vile predestined sinner, Doomed to be roasted for a dinner, Behold these lovely variegated dyes! These are the rainbow colors of the skies, That heaven has shed upon me con amore, A Bird of Paradise? -a pretty story! I am that Saintly Fowl, thou paltry chick ! Look at my crown of glory!
Thou dingy, dirty, dabbled, draggled jill!" And off goes Partlett, wriggling from a kick, With bleeding scalp laid open by his bill!
That little simile exactly paints How sinners are despised by saints. By saints
the Hypocrites that ope heaven's
door Obsequious to the sinful man of riches; But put the wicked, naked, barelegged poor In parish stocks, instead of breeches.
To his tuned spirit the wild heather-bells Ring Sabbath knells;
The jubilate of the soaring lark
Is chant of clerk;
For choir, the thrush and the gregarious linnet; The sod's a cushion for his pious want; And, consecrated by the heaven within it, The sky-blue pool, a font.
Each cloud-capped mountain is a holy altar; An organ breathes in every grove; And the full heart's a Psalter, Rich in deep hymns of gratitude and love!
Once on a time a certain English lass Was seized with symptoms of such deep decline, Cough, hectic flushes, every evil sign, That, as their wont is at such desperate pass, The doctors gave her over- to an ass.
Accordingly, the grisly Shade to bilk, Each morn the patient quaffed a frothy bowl Of asinine new milk,
Robbing a shaggy suckling of a foal, Which got proportionably spare and skinny; Meanwhile the neighbors cried, "Poor Mary Ann !
She can't get over it! she never can !" When, lo! to prove each prophet was a ninny, The one that died was the poor wet-nurse Jenny.
Letcle cress' up quite unbeknown
An' pecked in thou the winder
In' there sot Sulby all alone
That, yow sed, it must be true
She is always leastly better Than the best that the can do!
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